Africa’s love supreme
A conference April 11 at Harvard will examine varieties of “Love Supreme” in the faith traditions of the African diaspora. Scholars, students, artists, and elders will investigate and celebrate practices that, more often than not, were scattered through the world on the dark wings of the slave trade. “These are traditions that are right under people’s noses,” said co-organizer Funlayo E. Wood, a Harvard Ph.D. candidate in African and African American Studies whose primary field is religion. “The more they learn, the more they see these traditions everywhere.” Wood directs the African and Diasporic Religious Studies Association, now two years old. (A year ago, its first conference delved into the theme of divine spaces.) It is the only academic group in the United States devoted exclusively to studying the faith traditions indigenous to Africa as well as those of the African diaspora. The names of the faiths sound as venerable as the practices...